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The Art of Digging
While covert installation is the major selling point of HDD rigs, it’s be hard to drill if you can’t see where you are going. That’s why the final piece of the HDD tunneling trifecta is the locating system. Seemingly space-age technology allows you to know where the boring tool is and where it’s going.
“On medium-sized units the most common tracking system is a walkover system. This is done by installing a transmitter in the end of the drill string for sending a signal to the surface, which is tracked by a receiver of the signal. This information is monitored and decisions are made on guiding the drill string along the desired path,” explains Levings. “On larger units, the most common method of guiding the tooling is with the use of a wireline guidance system, which uses a magnetometer or gyroscope to guide the system. The information is sent to the operator via a wire or sometimes a wireless transmission system.”
Given that crucial decisions are made from the information given by the locating system, it’s imperative that the operator is well trained in the system he or she is working on. While training on both systems is suggested (as both have a place in the industry), it takes more experience and training to operate the wireline system.
“A locating system typically shows the operator the depth of the drill head, the roll of the drill head, the pitch of the drill head and the temperature of the transmitter inside the drill head,” explains Savage. “The roll of the drill head is based off of a clock face with 12:00 being up, 3:00 being right, 6:00 being down and 9:00 being left. These positions are used for steering the drill head.”
The Mythic HDD Rig
Standing in the shadow of a HDD rig with 1 million lbs of pullback force (that’s right, 1 million)is a humbling experience. And it’s one you just
might experience if you happen to be standing on
a Vermeer dealership lot later this year when it unleashes
three HDD rigs offering 500,000, 750,000
and 1 million lbs of pullback force.
Vermeer acquired nearly all of the operational
assets of Horizontal Rig and Equipment Inc., manufacturer
of these lumbering behemoth HDD rigs,
and moved the production of the units to its manufacturing
plant in Pella, Iowa.
“The market for drill rigs of this size is robust, as
gas, oil and major water and sewer projects have a
strong global outlook,” says Dave Wisniewski,
senior director of underground solutions for
Vermeer. “While there are competitors in this
range of drills, we feel our global sales and
service distribution network will distinguish
Vermeer in this market.”
Vermeer showed off one of the beasts this
past March at CONEXPO and it truly was
a sight like none other. Other than that premiere
showing, Vermeer is keeping a tight
lid on the units. They will begin to roll out
of Vermeer manufacturing plants this spring.
Hopefully then we can get a good look at the
monster in action. |
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